https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/25994/reverse-engineering-and-hardware-securityHi Nordic Semiconductor, I am Yoganathan Sivakumar studying Master in System on chip in LUND University. I wanted to ask some technical question in industry oriented. I wanted to know companies are doing Reverse Engineering in IC? Do Nordic Semiconductoren-USTelligent Community 13Tue, 17 Oct 2017 14:37:46 GMThttps://devzone.nordicsemi.com/thread/102425?ContentTypeID=1Tue, 17 Oct 2017 14:37:46 GMT137ad170-7792-4731-bb38-c0d22fbe4515:c050a989-45cf-478f-abb9-1031d4de8254Sigurd<p>Hi,</p> <p>For protecting the software on the chip, we have something called readback protection on our nRF52-series chips. This prevents users from using a debugger to read the flash and RAM. Setting APPROTECT &quot;disconnects&quot; the ability to connect with a programmer/debugger, but it still allows the microcontroller to access its own flash and RAM area. See this <a href="http://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/com.nordic.infocenter.whitepapers/dita/whitepapers/nwp_027/nWP_027_approtect.html?cp=11_0_3">whitepaper</a>.</p> <p>The only way to &#39;reopen/unlock&#39; the device after APPROTECT is set, is to issue an ERASEALL command through the CTRL-AP access port, and then issue a reset through the CTRL-AP. (nrfjprog --recover). This will erase the entire code flash and UICR area of the device, in addition to the entire RAM.</p> <p>Note that our nRF51 and nRF52 series are much more complex than the old legacy products(e.g. <a href="https://hackaday.com/2015/02/23/nordic-nrf24l01-real-vs-fake/">nRF24L01+</a>), and it’s extremely difficult and close to impossible to make a counterfeit nRF5x chip.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>